Hotel Sewing- Tips and Tricks

DH and I started doing sewing/scooting vacations when we still had a houseful. Those were often just a 3 or 4 days away. I could sew uninterrupted, and he could ride someplace different. Those weekend getaways got me ready for the times he had to travel for work, and we would be in hotels for months at a time. 

This year we've taken three big trips. Two of those times I brought a sewing machine, one I did not. At this point I've sewn in dozens of hotels, and I learned a thing or two about packing for these types of trips. 

If you have a choice of hotels, old hotels are often NOT a good choice to sew in. DH loves kitchy Route 66 type hotels, and though they can be fun to stay in, they are NOT fun to sew in. Old hotels usually have much smaller rooms than modern hotels. They also tend to not have enough electric sockets. Sometimes even charging a phone becomes an issue when there are multiple phones and devices to charge. 

No hotel I've ever stayed in had adequate lighting for sewing. There are ways around that, which I'll get to. 

Most hotel rooms in the USA have an iron and ironing board. Even in hotels where there isn't one in the room already, a quick check with the front desk usually gets you use of both. How good said iron and ironing board are vary from hotel to hotel, but at least it will be something.

My first sewing machine trolley was from a big box store, and although it was inexpensive, it still wasn't worth it. I only used that for one trip, and after two broken zippers on that one trip, I learned why sewists who travel invest in a Tutto. I'm sure there are other good brands of sewing trolleys, but Tutto is what I am familiar with, and they get rave reviews from quilters. I bought my first Tutto on a Black Friday sale, and I bought a medium sized case. At the time I was traveling with a cheaper Brother machine, and it worked ok with that. When I started bringing my Bernina on longer trips, my 440 barely fit in it, so I had very little extra space in it. This year I snagged an XL Tutto on clearance, and I'm so glad I did!

You might think I loaded my machine first, but I didn't. First thing in were my rulers, which I placed under the false bottom.

 Two of my travel rulers are Fiskars folding rulers. The orange one can be used to cut triangles or squares. It's 8x8"

The other is 6x24". The "hinge" is some really heavy duty adhesive plastic. It's thicker than tape. 

I also put in a couple other rulers I use the most, but by putting them under the false bottom they lay flat without much weight on them. 

In the medium sized Tutto this machine barely fit, but in the XL, I've got lots of space to add projects and accessories.

Foot pedal and power cord, don't forget those! I also have a travel iron which I prefer when pressing units over a full sized iron. Under the iron is a power strip. I always travel with a power strip so I can plug in all the things I need. All the remaining space in this section went to packing projects, plus my ikea lamp.

I have a June Tailor Press and Cut in here, but I also travel with a folding cutting mat. 

An 18x24" mat will be large enough to cut anything I'm doing in a hotel. 

The front pocket holds my extension table for my Bernina and a thread cone stand. I have a plastic container that holds my threads and extra needles, plus I've got all the regular sewing notions in here somewhere. 

I have travelled without a sewing table before, but if at all possible, I bring my folding sewing table. Putting a sewing machine on a hotel desk is a disaster ergonomically, and although I can do it for short periods of time, I prefer to bring a sewing table and a folding chair from home whenever I can.

In Arkansas, this was my sewing setup. The hotel chair was decent so I didn't bring in the folding chair, but we had to bring folding chairs for other parts of the trip anyway so it wasn't a big deal. This hotel room had no desk, so if I hadn't brought my sewing table, I wouldn't have been able to sew at all. You can see my white ikea lamp on top of my press and cut. I know a lot of women travel with clip-on lamps, but I don't, because I have learned that there isn't always a good place to clip it on! I couldn't have had my Press and Cut on the edge of the table if my lamp was a clip-on. The only plug open in this older hotel was right next to the door to the outside. If I hadn't brought a power strip,  I would have had to put the sewing table directly in front of the exterior door. Even with the power strip, I had to have DH knock so I could unplug the power strip every time he got back, but at least I didn't have to move the sewing table! 

I brought five projects with me, and they all fit inside the Tutto. I only ended up working on a couple. 

I had pre-cut this Spring Twist quilt from Sharon's scraps, but the green was mine, leftover from a backing. I really wanted another border on it, but this was as far as I got at the hotel.

Now that I'm home, the top is finished, and I had the perfect border fabric in my stash, but it was originally in my mom's stash! I liked this quilt so much, I've already cut another one in a different colorway, again from Sharon's scraps. 

I also played around with my Burst template. I only got a couple of these blocks done, but at least I know how to use the template now! The hotel room ironing board was adequate, I lucked out that it was height adjustable, not all hotel ironing boards are. 

The iron was a bit of an adventure I have no idea what setting the iron was on, so I only used it when pressing the quilt top, other than that I used my travel iron. I'm sure if I had asked I could have gotten a different iron, but I just made do with what I had. 

Why didn't I work on the other projects? I really needed a desk to work on the other projects. They were not quilting projects, and I needed space to mark and pin on a hard surface. This hotel did not work out for that. I tried pinning on the bed, but that did not work well at all. It was a really long seam, and I needed a flat hard surface to keep everything lined up. The carpeting was filthy, so no way was I going to put anything on the floor. This was an old hotel, but we didn't choose the hotel, it was the scooter rally hotel. At least it had larger rooms than a lot of old hotels, so it could have been worse. 

If you are going to be sewing at a hotel, my best tips are these-

*Bring extra lighting and a power strip with a long cord. In my mind, these are non-negotiable. 

*get a good sewing trolley, it makes a world of difference.

*if you can, bring a portable sewing table and a chair, if you end up sewing on a desk, get and and stretch frequently. 

*bring more than one project. Sometimes your set-up won't make working on certain projects easy. I try to bring at least one easy project, something I've already cut out, or strings or crumbs, that don't have to be super accurate. 

I've had to sew on desks, I've forgotten a power cord, I've had to have my sewing table in the center of a very small room, because it was the only space available. I've cut out entire quilts, sewn dozens of quilt tops in hotel rooms, and even done some FMQ in a pinch. Not everyone has the need or desire to sew in a hotel room, but it can be done, and it can be a lot of fun. If bringing a machine with you seems daunting, try bringing handwork, or a box of squares that need lines drawn on them. I've even brought quilt kits and cut them out at a hotel, but didn't bring a machine. Getting all the prep work done for a project and getting right to sewing when you get home is huge win! 

In case you wondered, I only sewed in Arkansas while DH was riding in a scooter rally. The rest of the trip we were doing things together. I would not bring a machine for a road trip where we are in a different hotel every night, but when we are one hotel for several days, sure! BTW, I can draw lines on squares in the car too! Just bring a clipboard! 

I hope this helps someone! Surely I'm not the only quilter on the move without an RV.

On the Road Again...But I'm Back

 This has been a year of travel for sure! We were just gone again, for over three weeks. I did manage to get some posts ready before left, so you shouldn't have noticed a gap this time! 

So where were we off to this time? Well, it was a series of places, and our first stop was Kansas City. We were towing one of DH's scooters, and we were headed to Chicago. We've been to Chicago before, and knew better than driving through Chicago with a trailer if we didn't have to, so we dropped the scooter off at a nephew's house in the Kansas City area. It was a lightning fast drop-off, because we knew we'd be back in just a few days. 

From Kansas City to Chicago it was made a bit more interesting for me, because we stopped at a quilting Hot Spot!

This was my first time to Missouri Star Quilt Company. We used to live in Missouri, but it was before the Doans moved there. That's OK, because I didn't have much time to quilt in Missouri, I was homeschooling full time and doing a lot of work at our local church. We also didn't have much money in those days, so even if it had been a thing back then, I likely wouldn't have gone.

Life is much different now, and it was a great time to go! We knew we'd be going there before my birthday, so DD#2 had given me a gift card to Missouri Star, and my MIL gave me birthday money to spend there. I didn't want to go crazy, because goodness knows I have a LOT of fabric already, so I went with a list. 

My list was as follows-

White fabrics with gray designs

Greens or blues with gold metallics for a quilt for DD#2

Something I could use as an ornament for the Christmas tree. 

How well did I stick to my list? You be the judge.

Starting at the top row, I bought the new Fabric Cafe book that I mentioned in my last post. I didn't know Missouri Star would have it, but I planned on buying it when I got back home. When I saw it, I decided to just buy it there. The purple and orange fat quarters were for my stash, I am always running out of purple, orange and yellow, so if I see those on sale, I snag some. Second row- the whites with gray designs per my list, a keychain that says Life is Sew Good with the MSQC logo for the Christmas tree, also per my list. The mug DH insisted on me buying. It's a teal color, and says Love in Every Stitch, with a quilt block on the backside. The bottom row is all fat quarter possibilities for DD#2 next quilt, with the gold metallics she wants, also per my list. I also bought two things for Christmas gifts that I can't show now. I went over my birthday money by $40, but the Christmas gifts were over $40, so I think I did pretty well. 

Here is a quick photo dump if you've never gone to Missouri Star. There are several different shops to go into, all with a theme so it's easier to find what you are looking for. All of the shop workers were very nice and helpful. They were spot on when they suggested Penney's Shop for the white with gray designs, and when I said I was looking for individual fat quarters and NOT bundles, they told me that only the wideback shop sells individual fat quarters. I don't know if that's always the case, but it was the day I was there. 

From Hamilton, MO it was almost straight to Chicago. I say almost, because we made a sidetrip to Riverside, Iowa. If you are a Star Trek fan like we are, you may know why.

In Chicago it was all about being a vendor at the Slaughterhouse Scooter Rally. We didn't get in any sight seeing, but I finally did score some Deep Dish Chicago pizza! Every other time we've been to Chicago we opted for something else, but now I can finally say I've had it.

After the rally it was back to Kansas City to pick up the scooter. We only stayed for a couple days, so we couldn't see everyone we would have liked to, but since we were early to have dinner with my niece one day, we made another quilty stop!

We went to Quilting is my Therapy shop in Liberty, MO. It's Angela Walters shop, and I rightly assumed she would not be there. That's ok, because my intention was not to fangirl, but to be able to try on the quilting gloves she uses. Some quilting gloves I wear a medium, and others a large. I've been wanting to buy a pair of the gloves she uses, figuring they would be cooler to wear in the summer, and the woman manning the shop was very nice and let me try on the gloves. Just an FYI, if you are in between sizes on gloves, I ended up getting the large in these. So what else did I get?

I bought the quilting gloves, and four fat quarters. three more gray on white designs, and one yellow FQ for stash. They didn't have a lot of individual fat quarters already cut, but they were willing to cut any fabric I wanted into fat quarters so that is good info to have. We were in a hurry, so I passed on that, but it was a fun quilt shop. 

We spent just a couple days in KC seeing family, then we went to southeastern MO to spend a few days with DD#1 and family. I spent a lot of time with them, but DH was busy getting new tires on his scooter and getting some riding in. We went to a local production of Annie at the community college, and I really loved watching the grandkids watch the show. I think two of the four would love to be involved in local theater. 

After a few days with DD#1's family, and getting as many hugs as I could from the grands, it was on to Arkansas. DH's goal was the Scooting the Ozarks scooter rally, but I had another side trip in mind. If I'm in Arkansas, or even near Arkansas, DH knows I'm going to want to go to Marshall Dry Goods in Batesville. 

I wanted a bolt of one specific fabric, which I bought wholesale. Aside from that, I made myself stick with the flatfolds. I didn't want to add a ridiculous amount to stash, but I did have a couple specific projects in mind. 

The bolt I purchased is top right. It has a woven look and the colors match so many projects I have in progress. I had a six yard piece of that fabric, and went through it quickly, and wished I had more of it. I got a 15 yard bolt for $47. As far as the fabrics go, the upper left is wideback remnants. The navy blue I needed for a project already started, I ran out of the blue which I was using as a background. The lower left is digital prints. I've heard various things about using digital fabrics, some people like them, some don't, and I knew trying some remnants of them was a good way to test them without dropping a bunch of money on them. The center column is mostly brights to go with a black/white bright project I want to start. There's also one more gray on white remnant. The far right is more green with gold metallic for DD#2 new quilt. 

The flat fold section at Marshall Dry Goods is a great place to find some deals.

Marshall Dry Goods was the last quilt related stop on our trip, but it wasn't the end of the trip. We were then on our way to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, for the Scooting the Ozarks Rally. For DH, it was finally a chance to be a rider at a rally, instead of a vendor, and for me, it was sewing time in a hotel room. I think I'll save that for my next post! 

Finish #6

 I may not be racking up a lot of finishes this year, but at least this one will never make my UFO list! I cut this baby quilt out early this year, just in case I needed a baby boy quilt for someone who ended up having a girl. I do actually need a baby boy quilt, but this one is not right for the family having a boy. I do know someone who is who hoping for more kids and this one would be great for them so I'm putting it aside instead of donating it.

This is the same type of quilt as my last scooter quilt finish, but I really like putting hexies and triangles together. The hexies on this are from a Grand Canyon National Park panel. The panel had four smaller pictures. I cut hexies out of my favorite pictures, and cut up the fourth picture into triangles. I made a very similar baby quilt last year in the same colors, but I used a different panel in that one. 

It's kind of funny, but when I started quilting I didn't like using panels. I think in my head I was thinking they had to be used as intended, which killed my creativity. Now that I've used panels in multiple ways, including sometimes as intended 😉 I find I enjoy using them more and more. There are some great panels out there, and now I find myself looking for them instead of shying away from them. They are especially useful if I need a themed quilt, but don't want to spend much money on fabric. One panel packs a lot of punch, so one panel mixed with stash and voila, themed quilt on a budget!

Just as I'm really enjoying using panels, Fabric Cafe just came out with a book to use panels. Panel Perfect 3 yard quilts would be a great introduction to using panels if you have shied away from them too. Panels really are fun to use once you jump in and start using them. 

More Quilt Tops!

 

I finished both the quilt tops from my last post! This quilt was so much fun to make, and I'm already thinking about making more. I think it would be a fantastic two color quilt done in scraps. For this quilt, I was using a partial jelly roll that was given to me, along with some of my own scrap strips. Choosing the background/border color was fun, and I just went with what matched the most strips without matching too closely for contrast. I used all WOF strips, but I think this quilt would work well with short strips. The pattern is called Off Course and it's in this quilt book.

If you've never looked through a Kim Brackett scrap book, you are missing out! She has so many great designs, and if you are like me and cut your scraps to size, there are a lot of great options in her books for you to bust those scraps. 

I also assembled the big quilt that was on the design wall. I wanted a border to add to the size, and I just happened to pick up a purple remnant of 108" wide fabric the other day. I rarely pass up a 108" wide remnant. Sure you aren't going to back a quilt with a remnant, but it's quick borders, or easily enough fabric for backgrounds of smaller quilts. Widebacks don't need to be relegated to the back, it's just fabric, and even a remnant of 108" wide fabric goes a long way. Without the border, this quilt was 90" square, with the border it's 100" square.100" is my minimum for a queen sized quilts, so that remnant was just what I needed, and I even have a little bit left since it was a 25" long remnant. The little bit left goes in scrap user system.

I haven't minded assembling the throw sized quilts, but this big one was pretty hot to assemble and iron during summer. I think I'd like to wait until it cools off a bit before assembling any more big quilts. I do have several big quilts that need assembling though, so I don't want to wait too long. I have a good opportunity coming up to take over the living room with basting tables and baste the big ones. Anything twin sized or smaller I just baste on my cutting table. If it's bigger than that, I prefer setting up my two 8 ft long folding tables. I have to move furniture to do it and it completely takes over the living room, but It makes basting the big ones easier. I try to wait until I have at least three big ones ready to baste, and then I'll baste until I run out of pins. Good thing I have lots of pins! I've got three quilts basted right now, so If I can get those quilted before I have the big quilt tops assembled, I can baste more big quilts with the reclaimed pins. Having a big pile of basted quilts to quilt over the winter will be a great start to hopefully cooler weather!

Why So Many Design Walls?

 I have a giant design wall in my sewing room. It's seven feet high and eight feet wide. I have an extra piece to it where I can make it ten feet wide. The insulation boards I used to make it were originally 8 feet tall, but I can't reach anywhere near that high so I had DH cut them down to seven feet.

You'd think with that size design wall, it would be enough. For some people I'm sure it would be enough. For me, I like having more options than that. I have quilt block design boards that I made using this tutorial. Blocks that are easy to get confused on, like ones with lots of HSTs are really great to lay out on these boards.

I also have a couple medium sized design boards on the wall next to my sewing stations. Why so many? Because I am always using one project as a leader/ender project for another, and sometimes the block boards are just what I need, sometimes the giant design wall is what I need, and other times I need something in between.

Right now there is (most) of a queen sized quilt on my giant design wall. The blocks are very large, and the bottom row doesn't fit on the design wall, but the rest of it is there. 

When I start assembling this quilt, with the blocks being so large, I don't have space to put a block design board anywhere on my sewing table. If I were starting a project that needed a bunch of HST's or something, that would be a good leader/ender for assembling the big blocks into rows, but I'm not working on anything like that now. I am, however, assembling some smaller blocks (made from other people's scraps) Block boards would be in my way, so my way around that is to use the medium sized design walls next to my sewing station. 

These design walls are flannel over foam board, and there are two pieces of foam board here. For these blocks I need to make sure no fabric is repeated in the same block, so being able to lay out a few at a time is very helpful. I can reach this board while I'm sitting at the sewing machine, so in between adding blocks to a row of the big quilt, I can assemble the small blocks for a different quilt. I don't need to worry about messing up the blocks, or knocking a bunch of pieces to the ground, because they are on the wall and not in my way. 

My big design wall is not mounted in any way, the big pieces of insulation board (covered with Warm and Natural batting) are just leaning against the wall. My block design boards are just upright on a shelf like a collection of books. The foam board design walls I have stuck up with Velcro Command Strips. If I want to move them, I can simply pull the foam boards off the wall, then the strips will pull off the wall leaving no damage. I'm sure about the no damage part, because I've moved them several times already. At one point I even had these mounted on the doors to a big wardrobe. 

We own our house, but any of my design wall options would work just as well in a rental. There's no big mounting ordeal, no damage to any walls, and easily moved to a different house. Originally I didn't think I had space for a big design wall, until I started facing the sewing furniture towards the center of the room instead of against the walls. Once I made myself a sewing "island" in the room, that freed up the wall space I needed. 

If you've been wanting a design wall, but thought you couldn't have one, maybe you can. You may just need to look at it with new eyes. If my house had a long hallway, I'd have put a design wall there. Once I rearranged my sewing room, a design wall fit in there just fine. There are a lot of options for design walls, my first was flannel glued to a bamboo shade so I could roll it up when not in use, since it blocked the closet. I really love having a design wall, or in my case design walls. Sure you can buy them ready made, but DIY ones like mine work just fine, and they are game changers. I used to lay out quilts on my bed, but this is easier, and better, so I highly recommend it. If you really can't have a design wall, a bed or the floor will work though. Where there's a will to quilt, there's a way! 

Playing with Other People's Scraps

 What's more fun than playing with your scraps? That's easy- playing with other people's scraps!

All of us have our own quilting journey. I have always loved quilts, especially scrappy ones. As a child when visiting relatives who had quilts, my favorite game to play was finding the fabric I thought was ugliest. I always thought the quilts were beautiful, but not all of the fabrics were. I always thought including ugly fabrics in a quilt made it better. 

My mother was mainly a garment sewer. She is incredibly talented, much better at garment sewing than I'll ever be. She used to let me play in her scraps to "make" clothes for my dolls. Of course, I couldn't sew and had no interest in learning, so my dolls mainly wore ponchos with a string tied around the waist.

I didn't start sewing until I was pregnant with DS the Elder. I sewed my maternity clothes, I sewed clothes for my kids, and I started my own scrap collection. I longed to make quilts, but the babies kept coming, and having five kids age 6 and younger does not allow for much hobby time. If I wanted to sew, I kept it practical and made their clothes or curtains, or whatever we needed at the time. 

The children grew as children do, and eventually they didn't need to watched every second. I bought a quilting book and read it several times through. The book was Quilting for People Who Don't Have Time to Quilt by Marti Michell. I still didn't really have time to quilt, I was homeschooling and involved in church, but I kept dreaming about quilting. Eventually, I did start quilting, a wallhanging here, quilts for the kids beds, because we didn't have enough blankets. 

I have never taken a quilt class. I started quilting by using what I had, however I could make it work. I followed no quilt police rules, because I didn't know the rules. I've learned that not knowing the rules is a very freeing thing. 

I LOVE reading quilting blogs, watching other people's quilting journeys. I LOVE watching quilters on YouTube for the same reason. I've seen quilters who are so paralyzed by the color theory class they took, they don't trust themselves to choose fabrics, and I've seen quilters who took a similar class and then created award winning quilts. The same class that can inspire one person, can discourage another. I'm glad I didn't know color theory when I started, and I'm also glad I've taken the time to learn about it now. 

I've noticed some quilters only feel comfortable playing with certain colors or color families. No matter which line of fabric Lori Holt or Sugaridoo has out, they all match their other lines. Karen Brown from Just Get It Done Quilts likes to stick with the same colors, even though she doesn't design fabric, she likes using a narrow selection of colors. In some ways, I envy them. If you stick to a color palette, all your scraps will play nicely together, every single time. I've run over it in my mind, could I stick to one aesthetic? No, I couldn't. I want to play with all of it! I want the brights and the neutrals, the modern fabrics and the reproduction fabrics, give me solids, tonals, and prints. Novelty fabrics I use a lot. 

My preference to use a bit of everything is why I LOVE playing with other people's scraps. I've used fabrics I would never, ever have purchased, and it was so much fun! If I don't like a fabric, I only look at it as a color, and ignore any print it may have. If I find a scrap I love, but I don't have much of it, I'll pull the colors from it to make a project, kind of give a quilt the feel of the fabric I liked. 

I'm still assembling quilts, largely from other people's scraps.

One woman gave me a bunch of plaids. I love plaids! She makes a lot of western style shirts, and a lot of the plaids leaned into feminine colors. I use men's shirts a lot in quilting, but feminine plaids? This was new. Another woman gave me a bunch of solids. A lot of the solids were colors that would work with the plaids. The solids were odd shapes and sizes from garment sewing. I decided to cut all the plaids into 5" squares, then cut the solids into 1" strips. I ended up needing more plaids, so I dug through my men's shirt stash and found some plaids that would work with the scraps I had, to make the quilt a bit larger. This quilt top is now assembled, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I find the solid diamonds a fun modern twist on what overall has an old fashioned feel. 

I was given quite a bit of the stripe in this quilt. It again, was leftover from garment making, so the scraps were weird sizes and shapes. I chose strips from my Scrap User System that matched the striped fabric and made blocks. I originally planned to use sashing and cornerstones, and put on a border. I had even chosen the fabrics to do that, and they were piled up with the blocks. I had chosen a green for the sashing, but when I went to cut it to make the sashing, I decided I didn't like it. I tried several blues, no. Pink? Nope. White? It just washed everything out. I started playing with the scrappy blocks on the design wall, realized I could do the blocks by color in diagonal lines, and decided I'd go with that. I was still thinking of a border, until I got it together, and decided a border would be too much. I used all the striped fabric in the blocks, so that wasn't an option. The quilt doesn't look how I intended it to, but I'm OK with that. 

I'm currently working on blocks from jelly roll strips I was given. Most of the jelly roll strips are partial jelly rolls, some strips were used for a project, and I have what wasn't used. I'm picking through my Scrap User System to round out the number of strips I need for the projects I've decided to make. I'm trying several new to me patterns. The things about scraps is they aren't precious, you can relax and play a bit. Try something new, mix colors you normally wouldn't. Try a color scheme you saw somewhere, but didn't dare by fabrics for, not wanting to invest that kind of money in something you weren't sure about. Using scraps is a great way to get outside your comfort zone in a low risk way. What's the worst that can happen? You'll learn that you don't like something, which is useful information. You can always use the blocks you don't like as part of the backing on another quilt. Quilting with scraps is my playtime, the most fun I have quilting. Maybe you'd enjoy playing with scraps too!

Finish #5

I'm definitely not setting any personal records this year, but with how busy I am, I will celebrate every single finish I get! 

I finished another scooter quilt. This was was originally going to be raffled off in Chicago later this year, but that rally already has three separate raffles going on. We may hang it on our vendor booth as an attention getter, but it won't be getting raffled off there. At this point the fate of this quilt is yet to be determined. That's OK, at least it's finished. This quilt uses more different scooter fabrics than any other quilt I've made. It's got scooter fabrics from Italy, Great Britain, and Japan. It's got scooter fabrics I bought from Spoonflower at a premium $$$. I probably google scooter fabric once a week. For a very short period of time, they were easy to find. Right now, I don't know of any current fabric lines that have scooters. Spoonflower is about the only way I've been able to add to my scooter fabric stash lately. International sellers on ebay and Etsy are also an option. 

DH decided to host a rally this year as well, though it will be a road rally and not a big local affair. I don't have to make rally bags and such for it, and I won't be cooking for it either. In fact, I won't even be attending! When he started talking about it, I told him I'd rather stay home and sew, since he won't really need me to be there. His rally will be late October, so maybe I can get some of the king sized quilts assembled by then if it cools off, then I could set up the big basting tables in the living room and have a basting spree while he's gone. That would be a fantastic use of a few days alone!

Topping Up the Quilt Tops

I prefer assembling quilt tops in the winter, when all the extra fabric on my lap or thrown over my shoulder is a welcome warmth, rather than a stifling heat. That said, assembling quilt tops is exactly what I've been I've been doing. I've got several king sized quilts to assemble, and I'm going to let those wait for cooler weather, but the throw sized quilts, yeah, let's get those done. 

Even DH has noticed that every time he comes to the sewing room lately, there's a different quilt on the design wall. I'm noticing the piles of blocks hanging around my space going down, which is a very good thing! It's definitely cleaning up the slow way, but actually making progress! 

This is not one large quilt, each design board holds a separate kid quilt. both of these are assembled, and I had enough blocks left to make a third and it's assembled as well. I made these blocks, and other identical blocks with a gray background using sew and flip corners. I sewed an extra line 1/2 inch away from the stitching line to get bonus HST's.

The bonus HST's became this quilt, which is also now assembled. So that's four quilt tops assembled and not piles of blocks in the sewing room anymore. I didn't add borders to any of these, nor am I going to.

Of course, I am sewing leader/ender units while I'm assembling quilts, so I'm making more blocks, but so far my leader/ender projects have been other UFO's or scrap projects. Even when I'm trying to not start new projects, I always consider a scrap project a "legal" start. If you don't keep the scraps flowing through your sewing room they will take over. 

One of the things I love about making kid or throw sized quilts, is instead of using wideback, I can bust some older fabrics on the backings. Most of these are wider than WOF, but not that much wider. Once I choose a fabric for each backing, I think I'm going to make them wider by adding a column of complementary scrap strips cut down similarly to a piano key border. It will be a great way to bust not only older fabrics but also some scrap strips from my Scrap User System, with a minimal amount of work. 

Finally Hit My Stride!

 Between DH being retired now, and doing quite a bit of traveling, trying to find a new normal is tough. Since I've been an empty nester, most days I went to the sewing room as soon as DH went to work. Even during the year he was working at home, work started at the same time every day, so when he went to his home office, I went to the sewing room. When he started working from home, I started matching my breaks to his, and we ate lunch together. I jokingly called it "Retirement Lite". 

I honestly didn't think it was going to be much of change once he retired, especially since he only retired from nursing, and still runs a business. He still spends a LOT of time in his office, so surely I can sew while he's working, right?

It took me longer to adjust than I expected, and largely because I hate waking up to an alarm. One of the things I was most looking forward to about DH retiring was no more alarms in the morning. It's not like we are sleeping until noon or anything, we usually get up between 6-7 am without an alarm, but now we have leisurely coffee time in the morning, which I love. DH is big on breakfast, but I hate eating as soon as I wake up. In the working days, I went and quilted for an hour, then I came up to eat breakfast. We never eat breakfast together because of my aversion to eating right away. The thing is, our leisurely coffee time, where we are reading the news and discussing everything from what's for dinner to world events, lasts anywhere from 45 minutes to almost two hours. If it's the longer period of time we both end up eating breakfast during that time. I am pretty much a cottage cheese and fruit girl, so not a lot of prep required. 

I really enjoy our new morning routine, and it's probably the most retirement-y thing we do. BUT, this new routine completely derailed my sewing routine. I've done the whole, quilt for an hour, eat breakfast on my break, get some household chores started then go back to sewing for years now. This week I finally figured out a way around that!

We eat lunch at noon, pretty much without fail. It's a predictable time. I realized if I switch my quilting time to after lunch, I could get myself into a new routine. This was huge! Why was this such a game changer? I was struggling with getting anything done. I didn't have anything basted and ready to quilt, and I had deadline quilts that needed to be made. I needed to baste something so I could do some quilting, and I needed to sew to get the deadline projects made. The thing is, I wasn't getting anything basted, and when I was sewing I was feeling so guilty about not spending any time quilting, I was distracted and not being as productive as normal. 

This week it all clicked. I didn't need to feel bad about not quilting, if I could make a consistent time to quilt. After lunch! Now I am sewing as much as I can in the morning, mostly switching between deadline projects and getting UFO's to the next stage. I'm seeing some real progress now that I'm in a better headspace.

After lunch, I go quilt for an hour, today that is some walking foot quilting, but earlier this week it was FMQ. After that hour, I spend some time either basting a quilt, cutting out other projects (Christmas stuff currently), or tidying up some of the disaster that is my sewing/fabric area. 

Now that I'm figuring out the new normal, I actually have a couple finishes! 

The quilt for my great-nephew is finished. It's finish #3 for the year.

I made his older sister a doll quilt, and it's finished too! I don't always count small finishes, but this year has been such a lousy year for quilting, I'm counting this as finish #4. I need the encouragement that I am indeed making progress. 

I'm feeling more encouraged than I have been in a while. We have quite a bit of traveling planned for the foreseeable future, but now that I figured out how to maximize my time at home, I'm feeling much better!

Running Late

This year has been so incredibly busy with non-quilt related stuff, I just keep falling further behind. 

 I did get to spend a great weekend with two of my grandsons, and two of the granddogs as well. We did some crafts, though nothing sewing related. We watched movies, ate cookies, and just had a fun weekend. Monday I didn't get much done, because even a good weekend with the grandkids can be tiring. 

I had hoped to get the overdue baby quilt done this week, but I still need to sew on the binding. I also realized I hadn't made his older sister a doll quilt, which I normally do if there are older sisters. (I've made older brothers quilts for their stuffed animals too, if they are into that) Since I didn't have a doll quilt ready, I looked through my orphan blocks to see if I had anything I could make into a doll quilt quickly.

I found a small pile of broken dishes blocks leftover from another project, and I came up with this layout. I have a piece of lavender minky just the right size to back it, and I know I have a batting scrap that will work. 

I've been piecing with a darker gray thread, but I'm almost finished assembling the next scooter quilt, as well as the blocks I've been using as leaders/enders while making it. To make this doll quilt, I really should use something with a white background as my leader/ender and switch to white thread. Since the scooter quilt is already in rows, my design wall was free, so I looked around the sewing room for something I could use as leader/enders. 

I found a stack of larger broken dishes blocks that I had made from bonus HST's from two other projects. I could have made a baby quilt with the one with white backgrounds, but I didn't really have enough of the gray background ones to do much with. I didn't have enough gray ones to make a border around the white ones, and no matter what I was going to have a couple blocks leftover. I opted to just bust as many blocks as I could in the same quilt, so I put an off center gray stripe down the quilt. I won't add borders, so the quilt will finish at 48x64, a good kid sized quilt. 

As far as things I actually got done in the past week, here they are...

1) Basted and quilted baby quilt, ready for binding.

2) Got scooter quilt sewn into rows

3) Almost done making alternate blocks for another UFO

4) Basted two more quilts, one smaller quilt for donation, one larger quilt for a gift. 

5) Cut out what should be enough 2.5x4.5" pieces for a potato chip quilt made from men's shirts. I will cut more if I need to, but I think this will be enough. 

6) got the doll quilt and another UFO on the design walls

It makes it seems like I got more done when I list it out. I think I tend to look at what isn't done more than what is done. I really need to get that scooter quilt finished so I can get it basted and then use my cutting table for cutting out the Christmas gifts! The holidays always come up faster than I think, and we've got quite a bit still coming up for this year. 

Not My Favorite Thing

 I've been assembling quilts, which is not my favorite quilting activity, especially in the summer. Ironing big stuff is always cumbersome, and having long rows of quilt blocks in my lap to assemble the quilt is always a chore, but worse in the summer. 

Since I live where summer is REALLY hot, if I'm making blocks, I just use my small travel iron which doesn't heat up the space like a full sized iron. If I'm assembling a quilt I need the big iron, which absolutely makes the air conditioning work harder. I don't mind doing those chores so much during the winter, because I normally keep my house pretty cool in winter, so some extra fabric on my lap can be welcome, and warming up the room I'm in with an iron makes it more pleasant. 

At any rate, I do have some new quilt tops complete.

The border is on the quilt for my great-nephew. I'll be basting this as soon as I'm finished with this blog post. That baby is already six months old, almost seven, and I really need to get this finished and mailed. 

DH is really loving this quilt. It's my version of Bonnie Hunter's Rhododendron Trail. It's big enough for our queen sized bed, but I'm debating switching to a king sized bed, in which case it wouldn't be large enough. The quilt I am purposely making for our bed could go on a king. 

The other blocks I made from the RT mystery quilt border units I am using for a different quilt. I really love this border fabric with that color scheme, and I have enough of that fabric left for another border. I decided I'd start making the alternate blocks I had planned to use for that quilt, so I can assemble it soon, and use the same border fabric before I forget and use the fabric for something else. The alternate blocks I need are just 16 patches, which are easily made as leader/enders, so they'll get made while other things are my main project. 

 I just sewed the last seam on this baby quilt. I am going to trim the sides straight, but I haven't even pressed this yet. Now that this quilt is together, I need to put the scooter quilt up the design wall. It's equilateral triangles and hexies just like this one, but it will be larger. The outdoor scenes in the baby quilt were cut from a National Parks pillow panel. I really do enjoy using panels in unexpected ways. I do enjoy assembling equilateral triangle quilts more than most. they are just pretty fun to see come together, and my Studio cutter dies cut them perfectly! 

Aside from working on quilts, my next big project is cutting out Christmas gifts. There are some health issues going on with family members (DH and I are fine) that could completely hijack things for a while, but if the projects are cut out, I might have a chance. People are always more important than quilting or gifts, so if I can't get it done but end up helping people through a crisis, that's ok. If I can do both, that's fantastic. 

Easily Distracted

 Sometimes I am super focused and get a lot done, and other times I'm easily distracted. I hate summer with a passion, so it tends to be my distracted time of year.

Distraction is why my design wall looks like this. The space baby quilt has the center sewn together, but I still haven't added the borders. I started laying out another baby quilt, but I need to move all of that over to actually have enough space to lay it out properly. The big hexagons are for the rally quilt. 

I've got everything cut out for the rally quilt, and I even have the blocks with smaller triangles sewn up. It just needs space on the design wall. 

I got the center of this big quilt sewn together, and I've chosen a border fabric. Once I get the border fabric cut this one goes in the quilt closet to wait its turn in the quilting queue. This quilt started out as Bonnie Hunter's Rhododendron Trail mystery quilt, but actually became two different quilts. The second quilt from the parts and pieces of that mystery isn't a top yet. The last mystery quilt I tried also turned into two different quilts.

I think the last mystery quilt I did completely by the directions was Allietare, and I made two of those! Even the murder mystery quilts I made changes to. 

I suppose some people might think not making the quilt per the directions is a failure, but I never look at mystery quilts that way. I never take any quilt pattern as Gospel, mystery quilt or not. In the end, it's my quilt, so if I want to add sashing, or eliminate sashing, change the borders, change the setting, that's my decision because it's my quilt. My rule for mystery quilts is that they come from stash, so I don't have a ton of money invested in them. When I'm not dropping a bunch of money on a project, I feel more free to ad lib the end result. The quilt above had solids from stash for background and sashing, and everything else is men's shirts. The border I chose is also from stash. 

I've already been thinking about this year's Bonnie mystery and whether or not I'll participate. I absolutely do not need another project, but that doesn't mean I won't join in. If I've made progress on the Christmas sewing front, I may just join in as a fun thing for myself. Last year I was feeling a bit behind, and I opted to not do the mystery. I was fine with that. Other years I've been drowning in deadlines, and did it anyway. I usually decide by whatever will be better for my mental health at the time. If my deadline projects are overwhelming me, doing a mystery quilt and using my deadline stuff as leader/enders can absolutely be the way to go. It may sound strange, but for me, the more I sew, the MORE I SEW. If I'm really busy on a project, I tend to get several other projects done too, just by using each project as a leader/ender for another. If I'm procrastinating and avoiding the sewing room, I don't get anything done. The blocks in the quilt above have been sewn for years, but assembling that baby quilt made me assemble this quilt too. Progress begets more progress. I've got time to decide, and we'll just see what I get done in the meantime.